Isaías Medina Angarita

Isaías Medina Angarita

Isaías Medina Angarita (born July 6, 1897 in San Cristóbal , † September 15, 1953 in Caracas ) was a Venezuelan politician , officer and President of Venezuela from 1941 to 1945 .

Isaías Medina Angarita followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Eleazar López Contreras and continued the democratic change of the country; so he founded the Partido Democrático Venezolano (PDV; German: Democratic Party of Venezuelas ) in 1943 . He was overthrown in a military-civil coup on October 18, 1945 (the military accused him of his liberalism and the civilians of his conservatism).

Life

Military career

Isaías Medina Angarita's parents were General José Rosendo Medina and Alejandrina Angarita García. After schooling in his hometown, he moved to Caracas at the age of 15, where he entered a military school. He graduated on July 23, 1914 and entered the 6th Piar Infantry Regiment as a sub-lieutenant .

In February 1919 he returned to the military school as a professor and later (already as a first lieutenant ) also became a professor at the school for officer candidates at the Caracas federal school. These teaching activities brought him in contact with other professors and students who made him accessible to new ideas and political inclinations (such as the autonomy of the universities). He later expanded his contacts with intellectuals and joined the “ Athens Group ” and the “ Club of Seven ”.

At the same time he rose in the military hierarchy and became head of the military leadership of the War and Navy Ministry (from this time his friendship with Eleazar López Contreras originates), finally in 1930 a member of the Commission of Military and Navy Regulation and in 1931 initially assistant in Headquarters of the General Staff and then Head of Cabinet and Secretary in the War and Navy Ministry. On July 12, 1935, he was (as a colonel) Minister of War and the Navy and on July 5, 1940, Brigadier General.

Presidency

In the presidential election of April 28, 1941, he won 120 votes (the next candidate, Rómulo Gallegos , got only 13) and was named president on May 5 (one week after his wedding).

During his government he respected human rights and the right to freedom of expression (and allowed the establishment of the social democratic Acción Democrática (AD) and legalized the communist Partido Comunista de Venezuela ) and changed the constitution so that women could vote (even if only at the community level) .

Coup and expulsion from the country

The failure to enact universal, direct and secret suffrage was taken on October 18, 1945 as a reason for a military-civil coup against him. During the coup there were supposed to have been several skirmishes with estimates of "between 100 dead and 300 injured up to 2500 victims in total". To avoid further bloodshed, Medina is said to have ordered the fighting to cease. He surrendered on the morning of October 19, 1945. He was arrested and expelled from the country.

Last years

Medina settled in New York . After his illness (damage to the cerebral artery) on May 18, 1952, he was allowed to return to Venezuela. He died in Caracas on September 15, 1953.

Web links

• Biography (spanish)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Winfield J. Burggraaff: The Venezuelan Armed Forces in politics, 1935-1959 . Columbia, Missouri, University of Missouri Press (1972), p. 73.
2. ^ Sönke Bauck: From Caudillismo to the Model Democracy of Latin America? Politics, society and the military in Venezuela (1928–1948) (= working papers on Latin American research, No. II-13), University of Cologne, Philosophical Faculty, 2017, pp. 51–54.